


Collisions

by Frellywellies



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 12:22:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5967315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frellywellies/pseuds/Frellywellies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Any day now, Miss Phinney, the army will realize how wasted you are here and send you right to the front.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Collisions

It was a cardinal rule of nursing that she should not have required instruction upon: never get between an angry patient and the object of his fury. But the Vermont infantryman was, as Miss Green might have said, no bigger than a minute and his erstwhile comrade had roughly the height and dimensions of a draft horse. 

 

The man had not intended to hurt her; if he had, she surely would have been more grievously injured. As it was, Mary received only a glancing blow to her right eye and the apple of her cheek. It knocked her off balance and had the unintended but welcome effect of causing both Vermonters to cease their scuffle, each of them rushing to right her while offering a string of urgent, mortified apologies. 

 

Mary assured them that she was fine but Matron Brannan, in one of her rare shows of solicitude, insisted that she be seen by one of the doctors. “That’s a nasty cut you’ve got on your cheek, Miss,” she said and Mary realized for the the first time that it was indeed blood she could feel trickling down towards the divot of her mouth.

 

When she found Dr. Foster upstairs on the residential floor, he let out an immediate, almost involuntary laugh. Mary smiled thinly and, though the movement made her wince, she preferred his reaction to the matron’s mother-henning. 

 

He made his face sober, apparently with some difficulty. “Oh, Miss Phinney, who have you offended now?” he said, no longer laughing but she could still hear the smile in his voice. 

 

“An accident,” she told him. 

 

“Hmm.” He took hold of her chin and gently tilted it downwards. “Likely story.”

 

“I…intercepted a fist headed for a young man from Vermont.” In a brief moment of utter foolishness, she thought about clarifying that the man was from Vermont, not the fist. Though, now that she thought it, she supposed the fist was as well. 

 

He was smiling again as he slid his hands back along either side of her jaw. “Any day now, Miss Phinney, the army will realize how wasted you are here and send you right to the front.” 

 

He moved her head delicately to the left and to the right and peered at her face with the same expression she had seen him wear before countless patients. It was curious but somehow remote, fascinated and absent, as though medical textbooks were scrolling past behind his eyes. 

 

He pressed his thumb against the swollen skin on her cheek and a little flare of light and hurt burst in her right eye. Mary sucked in breath and a tear began to form, just in the right eye. With that little sound—one tiny indrawn breath—Dr. Foster’s manner changed entirely. He seemed suddenly remarkably, almost discomfortingly, present and he looked directly into her eyes instead of at her wounded face. 

 

“Does it hurt?” he asked her and something about the tone in his voice made her want to soothe him, to reach out and squeeze his hand or to offer some other gesture of comfort as though it were he who had been struck.

 

“Not so much,” she said, giving him a smile. “Matron Brannan is overcautious, I think.” 

 

He was still holding his face in his hands and he was still looking at her. It had become a heavy moment, worrisomely common amongst the two of them of late. She felt that she should say something—one of them certainly must.

 

This time, it was Dr. Foster. “Keep it clean,” he said, too-loud and too-brisk, pulling back his hands. “Do not aggravate it as it heals and it should not scar your lovely face.” 

 

He said it in his usual teasing tone but it brought Mary up short and, to judge by the doctor’s reaction, he had startled himself as well. He paused and swallowed hard as though, were he only to gulp aggressively enough, he might actually pull the words back into his throat.

 

“I mean…”

 

Again, the silence seemed to twist upon itself, knotting up with expectation.

 

This time, it was Mary’s turn to withdraw. “I must go,” she said brightly. “I’m sure I’m needed.” 

 

“I’m sure you are,” he agreed, relieved and something else as well, an emotion it was probably better not to identify. 

 

She was halfway down the stairs when he called out to her again. “Mary!” She half-turned to look at him, still up on the landing. “Alert me before your next boxing match. I’ll be sure to attend.” 

 

Mary hurried down the stairs, smiling and wincing and smiling again.


End file.
